Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Recently Completed Programs

Workplace, Workforce, and Working Families

Basic Research

Prior to the start of the Workplace, Work Force and Working Families program in 1994, social science research was bifurcated into the study of work or family. Little, if any research examined the intersection of work and family. Through its basic research grants, the Foundation aims to create a problem-focused, interdisciplinary field of work-family scholarship that exists beyond the work funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Foundation funds innovative, high-quality research on the work-family conflicts faced by American families and the efficacy of various solutions to these conflicts. It also promotes the early work of scholars who focus on work-family issues.

Grants through this program have helped to build a community of work-life scholars where none existed, to develop a body of quality research on work family issues, and to train the next generation of scholars in issues related to the intersection of work and life. This emerging community and the scholarship it is generating are tied together largely through the efforts of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network.